The Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem

Light fills the great Gothic interior of the church of Saint Bavo in Haarlem, its soaring white nave and vaulted bays recorded with the precision that made Saenredam the supreme painter of Dutch church interiors. Although based on careful on-the-spot studies, the view combines two separate prospectives — one straight ahead, one toward the chancel at the left — and adds an altarpiece and a stained-glass window already removed in the painter’s own time, rebuilding in paint the richer Catholic interior that Calvinist austerity had stripped away. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.